How Marketing Automation Really Works

﻿ As a business owner, when you invest in marketing, you’re doing so to raise your company’s profile. The logic is that as you increase the presence of your profile, you will grow your customer base. The more people who know about your company, the more people who will be inspired to hire you or purchase your services.

What is Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation describes technology and software platforms that collect information when users open (or discard) emails, attend events, visit websites or frequent social media. The information collected through these various channels is conveyed to sales and marketing teams who are then able to customize outreach based on the interests of respective customers. The marketing automation systems establishes triggers that help you determine when and what to send to clients and prospective buyers.

Marketing Automation Examples

For instance, let’s say you host bi-monthly events to identify new customers. Anyone who attends your events and shares their contact information, is in effect, saying they are open to receiving communication about your company. You may communicate with them by sending an email, text message or direct mailer. If the recipient clicks on a link in your email or responds favorably to a text message, you’ll know the content you shared is of interest. If the recipient visits your website after receiving the direct mailer, you’ll know the mailer was effective. Once you know your content is effective, you may decide to continue sending similar content with the hopes of moving the prospective client up the ladder of engagement. Conversely, if the lead responds “STOP” to a text message, you’ll know you’ll need to find another way to communicate with them. A “STOP” message could also indicate the customer is not interested in the particular product or service you’re announcing. You could experiment with sending them different types of content, or you could determine that the person you’re interacting with is not your ideal or target customer. All of this information is gleaned through marketing automation.

Marketing Automation Effectiveness

For a lot of companies, marketing starts and stops with email outreach. You want to share information about a product launch or a new campaign, and send an email to your list. But relying on email alone, especially without a corresponding system to determine the effectiveness of your messages, is ineffective.

Marketing Automation Personalization

Since not all of your customers care about the same thing, your messages must be carefully targeted to the right audience. One product launch may be of interest to a subset of your customers, but not all of them. It’s difficult to gather customer-specific information without marketing automation.

Automate Repetitive Tasks

By automating repetitive tasks, marketing automation helps you both gauge the best vehicle for sharing information (i.e. sharing information via a white paper or infographic) and the most appropriate content for your audience or subsets of your audience.

Why Invest in Marketing Automation?

Essentially, you invest in marketing automation because it allows you to better understand the preferences of your customers. Equipped with this information, you’re able to hit the bulls-eye in terms of delivering what clients want when they want it. If you do this consistently, you’ll achieve both client loyalty and a return on investment.